SEAN Hornby of Little Lever is right about boundary changes - though why the Tories and Lib/Dems should get in a flap about it I don't know.

Two out of Atherton ward's three councillors are Lib Dems. Thirty years of Wigan rule would seem to have cured Athertonians of knee-jerk Labour voting.

The issue is not one of being taken over by Big Brother - a commonplace complaint of the 1974 "reforms" - but of being transferred inexplicably to a town which means nothing to us, and which is not even particularly accessible.

The true Wigan area is less than half the size of Bolton, but the bureaucrats needed to tie this blatant anomaly, whose nearest neighbours are actually St Helens and Skelmersdale, into "Greater Manchester". Hence its population and so profile were vastly boosted by simply tacking on the entire Leigh area to the east - a fact never acknowledged in the borough's title. It is as if Bolton had taken over Bury, and just didn't bother to mention it.

Atherton is nearer to the centre of Bolton than are several parts of the existing Bolton borough; Bolton is nearer to us than Wigan is, and far more accessible - 20mins instead of the 35 it takes to get to Wigan (on a good day).

Bolton is our centre for shopping, leisure and healthcare; for most of us, it is "our" town. We would happily come on a free transfer!

Andre Bowyer

Fallowfield Way

Atherton